Out of the Past 2024 / Stíny horkého léta / Czechoslovakia 1977
Paying tribute to sober heroism, this drama is formally the most concise of Vláčil’s three films set in the troubled period just after the Second World War. The story unfolds in a remote part of the Beskydy mountains, where a shepherd and his young family are held hostage by five armed Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries, who force their way into their home, seeking temporary shelter. In the spirit of the classical drama, the director brings into play the unities of action, time and place, creating a masterful sense of increasing tension through his characteristic methods: dynamic lensing, unusual and expressive camerawork, knife-edge scenes half shrouded in darkness, muted delivery from the cast, the use of powerful musical motifs and also prolonged periods of silence.
Zdena Škapová
100 min / Black & white, DCP
Director František Vláčil
/ Screenplay Jiří Křižan
/ Dir. of Photography Ivan Šlapeta
/ Music Zdeněk Liška
/ Sound František Fabián
/ Editor Miroslav Hájek
/ Art Director Oldřich Okáč
/ Production Filmové studio Barrandov
/ Cast Juraj Kukura, Marta Vančurová, Gustáv Valach, Robert Lischke, Jiří Bartoška
/ Sales Národní filmový archiv
František Vláčil (1924, Český Těšín, Czechoslovakia – 1999, Prague). Selected filmography: The White Dove (1960), The Devil’s Trap (1961), Marketa Lazarová (1967), The Valley of the Bees (1967), Adelheid (1969), Smoke on the Potato Fields (1976), Shadows of a Hot Summer (1977), The Little Shepherd Boy from the Valley (1983), Shades of Fern (1984), The Magician (1987).
Národní filmový archiv
Závišova 5, 140 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
E-mail: [email protected]
Marta Vančurová
Actress
Ivan Šlapeta
Director of Photography
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